June 18, 2008

Packet Vision partners with TANDBERG TV

Packet Vision and TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group (NASDAQ:ERIC), today announced that they have partnered to deliver an advanced targeted advertising solution. The companies have built what they believe to be the world’s only solution capable of delivering truly frame-accurate splicing in H.264 over IPTV, which is a key component in ensuring seamless delivery of addressable advertising.

The solution was used to provide addressable advertising to university students subscribed to Inuk’s Freewire Service - an IPTV network that provides triple play services to universities across the UK. Ads played out during Channel 4 commercial breaks that weren’t relevant to students were replaced with ads for a major UK convenience food brand during May. It was the second such campaign to be completed successfully.

Both campaigns were achieved using Packet Vision’s addressable advertising service, and employed Packet Vision’s PV1000 and TANDBERG’s EN8030 encoder. The PV1000 is Packet Vision’s fully integrated appliance with ad server, splicer and router. Powered by the VIDEO SWITCHING ENGINE, the PV1000 is architected to provide optimum addressability and unparalleled video quality to the network edge. The TANDBERG EN8030 encoder is based on the company’s award-winning MPEG-4 AVC compression platform and provides a feature-rich solution with industry--leading performance to delver the best quality pictures at the lowest bitrates. A frame accurate splice was defined as a splice occurring with an error margin of no more than 2 frames. Packet Vision and TANDBERG Television believe that the next-best available solution would have an error margin of at least 6 frames or ¼ second, which is clearly visible to the human eye.

Accurate splicing is an essential element of ad insertion or replacement, and therefore a basic but critical component of addressable advertising. Without such accuracy ad spots can either cut into the spots that follow them, or run short – leaving holes in the commercial break when an ad is inserted, or showing the original ad when that ad is replaced.

Packet Vision provided TANDBERG Television with a sophisticated analysis of Channel 4’s programming feed and with the tools required to fine-tune the legacy TANDBERG E5720 MPEG-2 encoder and the new EN8030 MPEG-4 AVC encoder – making them the only encoders currently available that can enable such frame-accurate splicing. The solution developed through collaboration between Packet Vision and TANDBERG Television adheres to SCTE35 and SCTE104 standards.

Patrick Christian, CTO and founder of Packet Vision said: “It’s easy to forget that standards within television are about ensuring the quality of viewer experience. If IPTV is going to meet those standards – and it has to – then collaboration is critical for all members of the ecosystem. Working closely together, Packet Vision and TANDBERG Television have developed the first solution for frame-accurate IPTV ad replacement - a significant step towards achieving true targeted addressable advertising.”

Roger Bolton, EVP of compression systems at TANDBERG Television said: “The opportunity to deliver targeted advertising is highly attractive to our customers as it opens up new revenue generating channels to drive the next generation of personalized television. Packet Vision has earned high regard in the industry for its innovative advertising solutions and we are pleased to be working with the Packet Vision team to deliver the technologies that enable our customers to introduce new advertising models today.”


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